Extreme weather event – 28 February

10:45am, 28 February 2024

We’ve just had our morning situation update with all teams across the network. From a weather point of view nothing has changed, we’re still expecting extreme heat conditions with a cool change not moving across the state until late this afternoon and tonight.

Our major concern today is bushfire activity. Please remember these key points when considering your Bushfire Survival Plan:

Before a fire

• If you are evacuating then do so early as fallen or sagging powerlines affected by high temperatures can increase safety risks on the roads.
• If you choose to stay in the property, be aware you may lose power, even if your home or business isn’t directly affected by the fires.
• Check your emergency plan and kit.
• Know where a safe evacuation point is planned within your community.

8:45am, 28 February 2024

Good morning, we’re back online here at Powercor HQ where our teams are still preparing for today’s extreme weather conditions. We’re updating the title of this page from 27 February to 28 February.

Total Fire Bans are in place and a Catastrophic Fire Danger is forecast for the Wimmer fire weather district while an Extreme Fire Danger is forecast for the Mallee, Northern Country, North Central, South West and Central fire weather districts.

The advice from the CFA to residents in these areas is to action your Bushfire Survival Plan now and stay informed across the day.

On Total Fire Ban days, we operate our networks in high sensitive settings to reduce the risk of starting fires. Our crews may also need to conduct safety checks and line patrols so it can take longer to restore power if an outage occurs. If our assets are impacted by a fire, it may take days or longer to complete repairs to electrical infrastructure. Please make sure power outages are part of your emergency planning.

4:30pm, 27 February 2024

We’re signing off for today and will be back on the blog tomorrow morning from 9am, as we continue preparing for some extreme weather conditions.

4:00pm, 27 February 2024 – fire preparation continues

2:20pm, 27 February 2024 – Beaufort community meeting

Powercor’s Richard Scholten and Jordan Oliver attended and presented at the Beaufort community meeting this afternoon, alongside emergency response agencies.

It was standing room only at the meeting where Richard provided advice on our activities ahead of the extreme weather expected tomorrow and what residents and business owners can do to prepare.

1:00pm, 27 February 2024 – linking in with the broader emergency response

Our planning, preparedness and response is aligned with and complementary of the broader emergency management sector’s approach.

Our business provides Emergency Management Liaison Officers, or EMLOs, which provide a direct link to our operations to controllers in Incident Control Centres (ICCs), Regional Control Centres (RCCs) or the State Control Centre (SCC).

When the fires began west of Beaufort last week, Powercor’s Gavin Parkinson joined the Incident Control Centre (ICC) in Ballarat to be the EMLO for Powercor.

Gavin, whose day job is a reliability specialist for Powercor, is also a CFA volunteer at the Buninyong-Mt Helen fire brigade.

He said the EMLO role was a critical position in the ICC.

“It was great because we were able to provide outage and asset protection information directly to incident controllers. We are also able to provide an interface between Powercor and other agencies involved including the Department of Health, Vic Police, local municipal councils and other utilities.”

12:30pm, 27 February 2024

Our crews and resource partners are currently working to protect critical assets around the fireground and surrounding areas ahead of tomorrow’s extreme conditions. This includes removing fuel loads and creating fire breaks around key poles, regulators, HV cables and transformer sites.

 

11:30am, 27 February 2024 – prepare now

We’re expecting extreme weather to impact parts of our network area from tomorrow 28 February.

Bushfires continue to burn out of control west of Ballarat and high temperatures and strong winds will increase across the day tomorrow.

Be assured that we have already start preparing. It’s time for you to do the same.

We have emergency response teams set up in Ballarat and at our Powercor headquarters who have been preparing and will be working around the clock to monitor and respond if power outages do occur.

Since last Thursday, we’ve been working closely with CFA and other emergency agencies to safely access the fire ground around Beaufort, Raglan and surrounds to assess and repair damaged infrastructure, replace more than 12 poles and restore power to homes and businesses.

We’ve also been taking action to protect assets in the projected fire path through measures such as using fire retardant on critical assets, and have set up available generators in key regional areas ready to deploy if needed

Today, Powercor customer representatives will be attending the Beaufort community meeting at the town hall at 2pm to provide residents advice on planning for power outages and an update on preparation and restoration efforts.

We have also deployed our emergency response vehicle (VERA) to the CFA campground to provide support.

10:30am, 27 February 2024

Powercor’s Richard Scholten addresses a packed Avoca Town Hall on electrical safety, preparing for power outages and also the steps we are taking ahead of tomorrow’s extreme conditions.

Fires can damage and destroy vital community infrastructure including the electricity network.

On Total Fire Ban days, we operate our networks in high sensitive settings to reduce the risk of starting fires. Our crews may also need to conduct safety checks and line patrols so it can take longer to restore power if an outage occurs. If our assets are impacted by a fire, it may take days or longer to complete repairs to electrical infrastructure. Please make sure power outages are part of your emergency planning.

We advise people to follow three important steps to be prepared:

• Be safe. Your health and safety is the priority.
• Be smart. If the power goes out, you’ll want to stay connected.
• Be ready. Have a plan in place for back-up power.

For specific fire-related advice visit the Fire Safety page.